April 5, 2000

Sheffield Leadmill

The [a]Ooberman[/a] live experience is more reminiscent of a village fjte than rock'n'roll Babylon...

"With friends like us you'll never be alone," announces Danny Popplewell exultantly at the end of 'Physics Disco'. Read that sentence correctly and it almost sounds like a threat.

For while their nearest stylistic peers, Belle & Sebastian, are keen to maintain a distance between themselves and their audience - refusing interviews, playing only rarely - Ooberman were all over you from the first second you heard them from the radio.

The Ooberman live experience is more reminiscent of a village fjte than rock'n'roll Babylon; a gathering of the extended musical family rather than a slam dance with mystery. Popplewell takes time out to read out birthday announcements mid-set - the result of the band's regular communication with their devoted tribe of cutey popsters on their Internet site. It's not exactly dangerous.

Then again, maybe that's the point, because aside from their more conventional gifts as songwriters (and if you really don't think that 'Million Suns', 'Blossoms Falling' and second-time single 'Shorley Wall' are spectacularly good pop records, then you were born with something missing) Ooberman have such a desire to give of themselves that it's almost embarrassing. The way Popplewell prologues every song with a two-minute explanation of the lyrics would leave any kind of 'dignified' performer wincing with shame.

Happily, Ooberman have long since had a shame bypass and are completely incapable of seeing beyond the adoring gazes of the front rows. That strangers to this world would have to wear at least a factor 12 cheese-block to cope with the sheer intensity of Ooberman's love lighthouse will already have put off the hard-hearted. For the ugly, the lonely and the statistically insignificant minority who thought that Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers were too macho, Ooberman are probably the most important band in Britain> at the moment.

In a time where most of our major stars would cross the road to avoid even the vaguest contact with their audience, they really can't give enough. Whether you need them or not, Ooberman are still waiting patiently to love you.